A Victim of Desire
by Dimples
Summary: It began as an innocent date. No thought that she wouldn't return home, or that they would find her battered body in an alley. No one could have known that she would slip into a coma, beyond all cures or healings. No one knew... *PARTS 6/7 UP NOW*r/r plz.
1. 1

Piper paced the kitchen, glancing up at the grandfather clock in the hall periodically. Despite it's many run-ins with various demons or malfunctioning powers, it kept perfect time, and that night was no different. It read one-O-nine, which meant that she was exactly three hours and eight minutes late. Eight minutes, since Piper had given her the extra minute after she got in the door to make her way up to her bedroom and be in bed before Piper made her nightly rounds at ten-O-two. 

__

"Come on, Mom! Gimme a break here! I'm sixteen, you can't give me a ten-O-clock curfew!" Melinda's voice rang shrilly in her mind. _"It's not even a school night! I swear, I'll never ask for an extension again if you just give me this one night. Pwease?"_ Even the pathetic puppy-dog face that her daughter put on wasn't enough to make Piper budge that night.

__

"Fine," she had begun, only to be cut off by the exhilarated shriek of Melinda. _"Fine. Be home by ten-O-one. And not a second later. I'll be checking your bed at ten-O-two, so you better be home by then. I just don't trust that boy, Mel. He gives me the creeps."_

Her daughter had moaned and groaned as Piper mimicked her sadistically. _"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I'm a horrible mother who never lets you have any fun. I just would rather have a child who was upset with me than a child who was found dead in an alley in downtown San Francisco. I'm sorry, but not tonight, Mel. Maybe if I can actually meet him for more than a few seconds at the door. Some other time."_ Piper had kissed her reluctant daughter goodbye as she dashed out the door at the honk of a horn a few seconds later. A slam of the front door told her that she was gone, and Piper winced as the broken down car sped off toward the city. 

__

"Does she hate me, Leo? Am I really a bad mother?" She recalled asking her husband, who wandered into the room a few moments later. 

__

"She could never hate you, sweetie. You're her mom. You're only trying to protect her…"

Protecting Melinda was always Piper's top priority, but at one-thirty, she became too frantic to think about anything but having her home safely. "Leo!" she cried up the stairs, hoping that her husband would wake soon. "Leo, come on, you have to help me find her!" 

The whitelighter orbed down into the foyer, pulling on a wrinkled flannel shirt as he pulled Piper closer to him. "Don't worry, I can already sense where she is," he said as he orbed them both out of the manor, and onto the streets of San Francisco. Piper paled as she gazed around the neighborhood. 

It was uncharacteristically quiet, since the downtown area was usually buzzing with noise. The broken down buildings and cracking sidewalks gave her an eerie feeling as she started down the street. There were a few shouts from the other direction, and the clanging of trashcans off to her left, but it was the silence that led Piper down a dark alley in between the complexes, with Leo cautiously bringing up the rear. 

A rat squealed as she passed it, jumping from it's place on the ground into a nearby garbage bin. Piper clung to Leo's hand, squeezing it tightly as she kicked out at the rodent. Shuddering, she glanced up at him. "She's down here somewhere, isn't she? You can sense her, I know you can. Just tell that she's not dead, so that I can kill her when I find her."

Leo faked a smile as he patted her on the shoulder. "She's alive, or I wouldn't have been able to sense her at all. Don't worry, she's down here somewhere." He stepped in front of his wife, placed a firm hand on her arm. "Wait here. Let me go ahead."

She paused as he walked forward slowly, craning his neck to see inside the last bin in the alley. She saw his mouth drop open and his face pale as he lifted himself up off the ground, hovering just above the opening. His hands were shaking as he lifted his daughter out of the trash receptacle, and placed her gently on the cement. Piper gasped faltered in her steps, unsure of what to expect. 

Melinda's thin body was covered in sores, and there was a giant gash that traced her jawline down to her neck. The light blue shirt that Piper had bought for her the day before was torn directly down the middle, as though someone had taken a pair of scissors to it. Her breathing was shallow, but she was breathing just the same. Leo carried her over to her mother, who shook her arm vigorously. 

"Baby, please, wake up… oh, God, please wake up…" she sobbed into Leo's arm as he orbed them all back to the manor.   


***  


The sores on her body disappeared after just a moment, but the cut on Mel's face took longer to heal. She shook violently as her father attempted to heal her completely. He spent nearly an hour bent over her unconscious form, trying to wake her from her state of shock. Piper wept from the chair in the corner, with Phoebe and Paige at her side. They both yawned together, but held onto Piper's hand firmly. Their respective houses weren't that far away, but they each had been woken from a sound slumber to hear that their oldest niece was found in an alley downtown. 

"She'll be okay, Piper. We'll figure out what happened when she wakes up. Just let her sleep. It's alright, honey. Relax." Phoebe rubbed Piper's back gently, whispering in her ear. Paige bit her lip nervously, afraid that her pessimistic attitude would pop out of she opened her mouth. She watched as Leo sweated over his daughter, pausing every few seconds to catch his breath.

"Why is it taking so long?" Piper asked quietly. She shrugged away Phoebe's hand and sat forward on the chair. "Leo, what the hell is going on?"

"Piper, I understand that you're upset, I am too. But I really need you to be quiet right now. Asking questions won't wake her up. Just let me work, okay?"

She bit back a bitter retort, and began pacing the room. This can't be happening. I knew that something was wrong with that kid, I just knew it. God, why did I let her even leave the house? Piper let little blurbs of blame shoot through her mind. There was nothing more she could do for her daughter except pray to whatever deity came to mind first. Moments melted into minutes and minutes transmogrified into hours. Morning dawned on them before they had a chance to sleep, and the sun's light brought with it two very unhappy husbands. 

Cole and Paige's spouse, Glenn, burst through the manor door at nearly the same time, pressing themselves through the entrance and into the hall with a loud crash. Glenn made a mad dash for Paige, who was dozing in a corner. "Paige! Jesus, what the hell happened? I woke up and you were gone! It's not like it was the first time, but you can't just get up in the middle of the night and leave without letting me know! God, I thought some demon thing came and ate you or something." 

"This isn't the time, Glenn," Paige hissed, nodding toward the couch where Melinda slept soundly. He narrowed his eyes in question and sat down next to his wife. "They found her really early this morning in an alley after she went out on a date with some guy. She was beaten up pretty badly. It's been hours and she's still not awake. But at least she's still alive." She sighed and leaned against Glenn's chest. "Can you imagine what you would do if this happened to Kate? Speaking of which, did you get her to school on time?"

Glenn nodded. "Yeah, she's fine… Is she going to be okay? She looks… bad."

"She'll be fine," Leo cut in, tired of the small, side conversation that was disrupting his concentration. "Look, we appreciate all you guys coming down here, but there isn't anything you can do until we find out what went on here. Why don't you just head out to work or wherever it is you go during the day."

Phoebe stood up and took Cole's hand, upset with Leo's harsh words. Piper smiled at her and nodded, hoping that her sister wouldn't hold a grudge over this.

"I'll call you. Keep you're cell phone handy." Piper hugged her sisters as they walked out the door, their male counterparts tagging along behind. Cole waved at Piper, who smiled a quick thank-you at him in return. 

When they were all alone, Piper kneeled down next to Leo and gripped the sleeve of his shirt tightly. "It's been too long, Leo. I'm so scared. What if she never wakes up?"

He sighed and removed his hands from over the top of Melinda's head. He took Piper into his arms and let her cry into his chest. "I swear, Piper, no matter how long it takes, I'll heal her. Just give me the time. I'll do it." He kissed her gently on the cheek, then on the lips with more passion. "Trust me."

"I do trust you, Leo. I only want our daughter back." Piper leaned against him, feeling his strong arms around her, and reached out to take Melinda's cold clammy hand. She twitched at her touch, and for a moment Piper imagined that her eyelids fluttered. But the spasm in her daughter's hand subsided, and once again she remained motionless. Her mother let out a deep breath slowly, and closed her eyes in thought. She has to be all right. She has to be all right. She has to be all right. "Maybe we should just let her sleep for the day. I'll stay with her until noon while you take a nap. Then you can try again."

Leo nodded in agreement and yawned. He kissed her again before he stood up and walked up the stairs, glancing briefly over his shoulder.   
Piper remained in her spot on the floor, watching Mel's chest rise and fall with each breath. She resembled a fallen angel, the light from the window forming a small halo of light around her head. Her torn shirt was a bloody mess, soaked with an amount of the scarlet substance that made Piper cringe. "I told you not to go out with that boy, didn't I?" she whispered into her daughter's ear. "I should have made you stay home. I should have made you stay with me, where it was safe. Now look at you. And it's all my fault." She wiped away her tears and kissed Melinda's forehead softly. She traced the thin line of the scar where the gash used to be, raking her skin with the tip of her finger.   
Melinda's dark brown hair fell away from her face, revealing the line of silver hoops that ran up the side of her ear. Piper had hated each and every one of the piercings on her daughter's body, from the butterfly belly button ring to the rod through her tongue, but at that moment, she would have let Melinda pierce anything she wanted if she would only wake up and yell at her for being a lame parent.

"What happened to you, sweetie? That's all I want to know. Just tell me what happened…"


	2. 2

Piper couldn't sleep, despite the fact that she had been relieved of her watch over Melinda promptly at noon. She lay in her bed, tossing and turning, envisioning the worst possible scenarios in her head. _She might die while I'm asleep… she might never wake up… she could wake up but be mentally damaged for the rest of her life… she could end up a vegetable, completely devoid of everything human… she could die…_

            Her silk nightgown was drenched in anxious sweat within just minutes, so she took it off, letting it slop to the floor and ooze onto the rug. She grimaced and yanked the quilt over her head, afraid that if she came out from under them she would have to face the reality of her situation once again. Her daughter lay on their sofa, comatose for almost twelve hours now, and there was nothing she or her whitelighter husband could do about it. It was like a bad dream that kept coming back, night after sleepless night. 

            She grunted and buried her body in the soft down of the blanket, curling into a tiny ball so that no one would notice her. _I need you now, Prue. More than any other time that I may have said that, now is the only time that I don't know how I'll ever get through. Her thoughts wavered, slowly becoming a blur across her mind's canvas. She blinked, trying to stay awake, but at last she gave in and closed her eyes, praying that her sleep was dreamless, rather than filled with the gruesome apparitions of what she could only imagine had happened to her daughter._

            She awoke later with a low buzz ringing in her ear. It was almost as though she was hung over after a long night tending bar at P3, but she didn't feel the usual monster headache that came with the other after-effects of binge drinking. Her vision was clouded, and she stumbled as she got up out of bed, like her limbs had wandered away from her during her nap and somehow reattached themselves in the wrong places. Her feet were numb, and tingled slightly as she wandered into the foyer. The grandfather clock read just after two in the morning, but the light was still on in the living room. She peered slowly around the corner, still a little lightheaded from her trek down the flight of stairs. Through her befuddled sight, she could just make out her husband sitting cross-legged on the floor by the couch, where Melinda was still settled silently. She could hear Leo whispering to their child, and she smiled lazily as she reminisced along with him.

            "Do you remember that time when you were seven, and your mom took you to the zoo instead of taking you to school? She froze a polar bear when no one was looking so you could go and pet it without being eaten." He laughed quietly and stroked Meinda's hair back away from her face. "Or how about your tenth birthday, when she couldn't find any matches so she tried to light your candles with her power and she ended up blowing cake all over the kitchen? Just wake up, Mel, and we'll have fun like that again. Just the three of us, like old times. Please, just open your eyes." He rested his head against her shoulder, holding one hand over her chest while the other clenched her fingers tightly. He gritted his teeth and poured every ounce of strength he had left into hid daughter, filling her with his life and energy. Her hand stiffened then relaxed in his, causing him to jump suddenly.

            Piper walked into the room, the sight of Melinda's movement shaking her from her sleepiness. "Did she move? Leo, tell me you saw her move."

            He stared up at her and nodded tiredly, but with a small grin upon his drawn face. "Yes, she moved."

            Her hopes renewed, Piper leaned over Melinda and cupped her cheek in one hand. "Honey, please, open your eyes. Open your eyes, sweetie. Just look at me… Look at me, damn it!" All her barriers broke down, and she screamed, squeezing her daughter's chin in her palm. Tears streamed down her face as she collapsed into Leo's lap, still crying out. "Melinda Anne Halliwell-Wyatt, look at me! Open your goddamned eyes and look at me!"

            Leo wrapped her up in his tender touch, shushing her only once as she fought against him. "Shhhh, Piper. That won't help. Yelling won't help her to wake up."

            "You don't know that! We've tried everything else, and nothing is working! Damn it, Leo, I just want to she her eyes again…" she trailed off, allowing herself to be held in his arms. "What if she-"

            He pressed his callused index finger across her lips. "No 'what-ifs'. Just wait. She'll make it, I promise."

            "Can't the Elders help? Would they know how to fix this?" Piper pulled Leo's handkerchief out of his pocket and blew her nose in it, then shoved it back in its original place. 

            "This isn't their problem, Piper. They can't just fix every mortal problem that arises with us. They deal strictly with demonic issues." He took the kerchief back out of his pocket, touching it only at the corner, and dropped it on the coffee table.

            "Who says this isn't demonic? That boy looked very strange, Leo. His eyes were so dark, nearly black."

            "So the kid had dark eyes. All the better for us. Now we can describe him to Darryl so he can help us catch the bastard. But it doesn't mean that he's a demon, or even a warlock. Let's just deal with Mel first, okay?" Leo hugged her tightly and kissed the top of her head. 

Piper's eyes softened and she relaxed, leaning against his barrel-like chest. "Can we at least take her up to her room? Sitting on the floor for hours is becoming a bit of a hazard to all of our healths."

Leo nodded and lifted her off of his legs, which had gone numb beneath her light weight. "Yeah, that sounds like a plan."

***

            _It's my turn, he thought viciously. __It's my turn to be the leader, the one that all beings look up to. I have the power, but how do I wield it? I take advantage of young girls. She was just another check in my little black book, but why do I have the feeling that she was something more? Something… supernatural. She had the aura of a whitelighter, yet she had no powers to speak of. She fought with her fists rather than with her magic. Perhaps she was merely a pure soul, so resembling a whitelighter that I imagined the glow around her. _

            The man in black paced his tiny quarters, kicking out at a rat that scuttled out in front of him. The moldy walls reminded him of his cell in the underworld, damp and foul-smelling. A single green vine of thorns trailed up the decaying brick and out a broken window above his head. _ He sighed and tugged at the weed, yanking it from its deep-set roots. He threw it angrily to the ground, then watched as the thick red blood began to pool in tiny from the gashes in his hand.. He licked it away, letting the metallic substance slide effortlessly down his throat. His shadow shivered behind him, without the said response from its owner. The man in black turned to his silhouette and sneered, disgusted that it lacked the strength to stomach the rancid taste. _

            "Not even my shadow can take a few risks," he mumbled bitterly. _But the girl… she's the key to gaining power. I can feel it…_

***

            Piper and Leo held hands at Melinda's bedside, she leaning against his shoulder while he drummed his fingers nervously on the arm of his chair. He kept imagining all the horrible things that could be going on in her body at that moment. So many different poisons, curses, sicknesses that were all beyond his control. Even something non-demonic could slip past him unnoticed, but after all this time he should have been able to figure out the problem. And because he couldn't, Leo felt as though he had failed as a father. Like he had in some way let his baby girl down. That thought alone sent a wave of panic though his body. 

            "Stop it."

            He snapped to attention as Piper whispered up to him. "Huh?"

            "You're tapping your fingers. Stop it."

            Again, he shuddered. Despite the loving gesture of Piper wrapping herself around him, Leo couldn't help but think that maybe she blamed him for not being able to heal their daughter. Yet, he had thought the same thing about her when Prue had died. Perhaps he didn't know his soul mate as well as he thought he did. "Yeah, okay."

            "Thank you." Silence enveloped the room as the clock on the wall ticked away the seconds. One, two, three…fifteen, sixteen, seventeen… one hundred and four, one hundred and five… time melted together in a boiling pot of minutes and hours, choking both of them with the heat of unknowing. It was as though they had just stopped breathing, and the only thing that was keeping either of them going was knowing that somewhere under her cataleptic shell, Melinda was alive, awake and laughing with them in a place where no evil could touch them. Somewhere beyond reason, beyond existence, beyond perpetual chimeras and phantasms. Time was no object, sleep was no necessity, and love flowed in rivers deeper than the deepest regions of the uncharted oceans. The ultimate utopia.

            Piper closed her eyes and dreamt of her paradise while Leo twiddled his thumbs noiselessly. She squeezed her daughter's hand tightly before getting to her feet and throwing her hands in the air. "I can't take this anymore, Leo! There has to be something we can do, even if it involves a hospital. We can't just sit here and let her drift away like this!"

            "Don't you think that I would do something if I could, Piper?" Leo shot back. "We can't take her to a hospital, they'll ask too many questions. I can't heal her, so there's nothing else we can do but wait."

            "Wait for what?! For her to slowly starve to death? For her to be attacked by another demon? I How can you sit by and watch while our daughter disintegrates into nothing?!" Piper fumed, stamping her feet on the carpeted floor as she paced. 

            Leo stood up, stepping in front of his wife to look her in the eyes. "We don't even know if it was a demon in the first place. Come on, Piper. The kid was just another guy from her school. He's probably in another alley just as beat up as she is."

            "Stop kidding yourself, Leo," Piper hissed. "This was no ordinary assault. If it were, you would have been able to heal her by now. Face it. Our daughter was attacked by a demon. A powerful one. And we have to do something about it before it's too late." She stormed out of the bedroom, grabbing the cordless phone from its cradle in the hall as she went. She punched the numbers mechanically with her fingers as her feet carried her up the stairs to the attic. A few rings later, a familiar voice answered sleepily.

            "Hello…?"

            "Pheebs, It's me. Get Paige and be here in ten minutes. I need you…"


	3. 3

            "You said you needed us, Piper, so we came. Stop with all this cryptic bullshit and tell us what we can do." 

            Phoebe placed her hands on her hips, which were still clad in the light blue silk pajama pants she had worn to bed earlier that night. She watched as her older sister frantically flipped through page after worn out page in the Book of Shadows, searching for an answer to an unknown question.

            "You force yourself to get premonitions all the time, right? So you can do it now. I need to know what happened to Melinda last night. I need you to tell me that I'm not crazy, and all this is happening for a reason, even if the reason happens to be a bad one. Help me out here, Pheebs. Just tell it to me straight. No sugar coating, no fluff, just the God's honest truth. What happened to my daughter?" Piper pleaded with her sister, her eyes giving away all the despair that she was trying so hard to mask beneath her determined façade. 

            The middle sister bit her upper lip, afraid of what she might see if she agreed to do this. But how could she say no when her niece's life was at stake? "If Leo will let me in, then I'll try, Piper. I swear, I'll try."

            Paige nodded from beside her sister, not really sure what she could do to help the situation. If she was anything, she was in the way, and it made her feel useless. "I'm here whenever you need me. Spells, potions, demon-searching, just ask. I'm your man… woman… whatever." 

            Piper cracked a smile that faded after a second. "After Phoebe gets her premonition, I'm gonna need you to find the bastard that did this. Find him in the book, then find him with the scrying crystal. Use a world map. That might help a bit. I'm going to talk to Leo. Phoebe, follow me, but wait outside the door while I convince Leo that we're right this time." She traipsed down the attic stairs, with her little sister lagging behind cautiously. Once they reached Melinda's door, Piper waved at Phoebe to wait, while she pushed the door open a crack.

            "Hey."

            Leo looked up from his seat on the end of the bed. "Hey."

            "Can we talk for a second? I kind of have an idea that I want to run by you." Piper closed the door behind her as she walked into the room, slowly making her way closer to her estranged husband. 

            "Don't bother," he said as Piper reached out to him. "I heard your sister come in. Paige is most likely upstairs, flipping through that damned book, while Phoebe waits for Big Sister's okay that she can come in and work her magic on my daughter. Well I won't have it! If there's nothing I can do, then there's nothing any of you can do! Face it, Piper. We're losing her…" he trailed off as he rubbed at his eyes violently, wiping away the hurt that was welling up in them.

            Piper drew in her breath and wrapped her arms around him. "Oh, Leo. I know you feel helpless. We all do, but if we can help her, then please let us try. There's no harm in knowing what happened. Then we can figure out if we need a vanquish or a cop. Please, Leo. What have we got to lose?"

            He pressed his forehead against her hair, leaning over her as though she were his pillar of strength. She could feel his tears drip onto her scalp, and she made a mental note to talk to him about it later. "Does this mean that Phoebe can come in now?"

            Leo nodded through his tears, hugging her tightly into his chest before he let her go to open the door. Phoebe entered tentatively, gnawing at her lip again. Leo gave her a faint nod before he blended himself into the wall, pretending that no one could see him.

            "Show us what you're made of, Pheebs," Piper said gently, patting her sister on the shoulder. "No pressure, I swear."

            Phoebe laughed to herself as she sat down on Melinda's bed, tracing her profile slowly. "It would have been easier if Leo hadn't healed all of her wounds. Then maybe some of the blood could have triggered a premonition without using up so much effort."

            "She still has the scar on her forehead, the deep one that ran down to her neck. Leo tried to get rid of it, but it didn't seem to want to go away." Piper went and stood next to Leo, reassuring him that they were doing the right thing by taking his hand firmly in her own. 

            The middle sister nodded and ran her finger along the thinning scar, which, despite all efforts, remained a deep shade of pink. She closed her eyes and let her energy flow into the dead tissue, searching the for the cause of the wound in the deepest recesses of Melinda's memory. She forced open the invisible door that was locking all her thoughts away and let herself in before it all came tumbling out. Phoebe gasped as the last half hour of her niece's consciousness were crammed into thirty seconds of a vision. 

            _The boy had begun to drive her home, but took a wrong turn into a bad neighborhood… "Where are we going?" she asked. His simple reply was, "home." They'd ended up in an alley, filled with the rotten fruit from yesterday's market. The stench was horrible as the humid night air stimulated the moldy food to decompose faster. With the windows rolled up, no one could hear her scream as the once handsome boy  morphed into a disfigured man, his eyes as dark as freshly mined coal, as just as cold. Melinda had fought back as he ripped open her shirt, tearing at her torso with his nails. He silenced her cries with one hand, and her resistance to his advances with a quick thrust of himself into her unwilling body. She bit ferociously into his hand and he howled, giving her the blow that ultimately led to her incapacitation. She closed her eyes, the last of her memories melded into darkness…_

_            Phoebe shook with horror, her eyes welling up with tears of despair. "Oh God, no…anything but that…"_

            Piper watched helplessly from the corner, suddenly afraid of the answers that she had been searching for. "Phoebe…"

            "She was raped, Piper! Mel was raped by a demon!"

***

            Mildew encrusted each corner of the small room, forming small pads of soft moss that the dark man found he could use as a bed. He laid his head against one the growths and watched as a shiny black beetle scurried around near his leg. He reached over and picked the helpless creature up, studying it for a moment. He looked into it's beady eyes, squinting to see if he could make out what the insect was thinking. "You're as lost as I am, little fellow. Yet I have no one to guide me through my darkness, whereas you have me to show you into a new life…" he smiled at the thing just before he crunched down on it's head, tearing it from it's body and sucking the juice from the hollow crevice. He slurped up the rest of the beetle and reached for another that scuttled out from a crack in the concrete. It alluded his grasp, fleeing as it saw its companion's leg twitching from the corner of the man's mouth. He sighed and sat back, basking in the fineries of his surroundings. _Prison wasn't nearly as nice as this place. And the food… ahh, it's the finer things in life that one misses the most. Beetles were always highly coveted delicacies down there. Especially to someone who hadn't eaten in over a century. The Source really knew how to enforce his rule. But now, so many years after his defeat, here I am, still scrounging for bugs in a damp cell not worthy to house even the lowest of warlocks. I can feel the rise to power within my grasp, yet I know not from where it will come. Perhaps a visit back to the underworld is in order. Maybe then I'll find out the reason that this girl's image plagues me… his thoughts trailed off as he closed his eyes for a moment, then snapped them open. "Now would be the perfect time," The dark figure winked over at his shadow, who huddled timidly in the corner__. "Come on, you. It's now or never, and if you should choose never, I'll make you wish that you had not chosen at all." The shadow stood, reattaching itself to it's master feet, shuddering at the cold feeling only once. The duo looked at each other once, before turning and blinking away._


	4. 4

          Piper's knees gave way beneath her, turning to gelatin at the jarring word that had escaped from her sister's lips. Leo grabbed her as she began to slide down the wall, her hands masking the horror that was sown onto her face. She could feel him shaking as he let her down gently to the floor, the two of them collapsing in a heap against the wall. "Do you believe me now?" she whispered into his collar. "Is this what you wanted to hear? That our daughter was _raped by a demon? Is that what you needed for proof? God, Leo, she could die!" She pounded her fist against his chest and he flinched, but took the blow without response, almost as though he were punishing himself for not finding out sooner. _

          "I never thought… I'm so sorry, Piper," he rubbed her back in small circles, trying to calm her down, but she seethed in his arms, smacking him hard on the shoulders.

          "Sorry won't take back the rape, Leo! Sorry won't wake her up, and sorry certainly won't make me forget what's happened tonight! Just orb up There and see what They have to say, like you should have done from the start." Piper removed herself from her husband's lap, and he sat there on the floor for a second before orbing out of the room. 

          Piper flopped onto the bed next to Phoebe, who had dark circles sagging under her eyes. The tracks of her tears were highlights against her pale skin, and she tried to wipe them away as her sister sat down with her. "I'm sorry you had to find out like this, Piper. If there was any other way-"

          "There was no other way," she interjected. "It would have hurt more coming from some strange doctor in a hospital. Leo was right about that, at least. It's just…" she sniffled and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. Phoebe wrapped her arms around Piper's neck, who leaned in closer to her sister and began to sob into her sleeve. "It's just that I knew that there was something strange about that kid. I _knew that he was trouble, I just didn't think… I should have made her stay home. I should have made her stay here and watch __Sleepless in Seattle with me. It's all my fault, Phoebe. I'm never going to forgive myself for this, for leaving her defenseless against that demon. I should never have bound her powers. It's all my fault."_

          "It was never your fault, Piper. You're a good mother. If you'd had control of this, then yes, you would have made her stay home. But the point is that you didn't have control, and therefore it can't be your fault, now can it?" Phoebe let her sister put her head down on her thigh as she laid down on the end of the bed perpendicular to Melinda. She brushed her long, dark brown hair with her fingers, sifting through a days worth of grime without hesitation. The only thing on her mind at that moment was the face of the demon who had attacked her niece.

***

          The cavernous tunnels that wound throughout the underworld were a welcome transition from the dark man's moldy hole in the abandoned building on the surface. The heat bothered him only slightly, since his real problem was slipping around unnoticed. Ever since the Source had been defeated by the Charmed Ones, the struggle to attain ultimate power over the underworld had been shuffled around from one useless leader to another, and, at the moment, there was no absolute evil on the throne. The few factions that were surviving the civil war in the underworld weren't yet strong enough to take on the masses of demons and warlocks who band together unwittingly to knock down the next in line for succession to reign as the Source. But it was only a matter of time before the dark man would find himself at the top of the proverbial food chain, smashing his adversaries not only with his strength, but with his intelligence as well. Detailed plans of the tunnels washed through his mind as he wheeled sharply around corners until he found the room where he wanted to be. Hiding off behind a lava rock, he listened intently to the two men that stood in the center of a large group of hooded demons and underlings.

          "Two nights ago there was a victory for all evil beings, not just the upper level tyrants that try to keep us under wraps. It seems that one of us, no one is sure who, rendered the daughter of the eldest Charmed One inanimate, thus leaving her mother and the whitelighter out of commission." The first hooded man waved his hand around the group, then nodded for the second to begin. 

"If there ever was a time to strike, now would be it. While the strongest of the witches is preoccupied, while they have their guard down. Let us finish the job that one of our members started in the alley!" 

There were tremendous shouts of agreement as the dark man smiled to himself.  _So that's why the girl is trapped in my mind, he thought.__ She is the daughter of a witch… and a whitelighter as it would seem. If she is in fact such a being, then why didn't she fight back with her powers when I attacked her? She would surely be well equipped to deal with a lowly darklighter such as myself… unless she had no powers, or they were bound at her birth, in which case she would be defenseless against my assault. Ahh, the pieces are beginning to fall together for me now. If a darklighter's poisoned arrow can kill a whitelighter within hours, imagine what his semen can do. And a child to be born of such origins as ours would certainly be a highly coveted being, if she were to become pregnant. Now I'll just have to make sure that I get to her before those buffoons in there do. His shadow listened intently to his master's thoughts, trying to piece together what he was planning for their latest conquest. He had minimal time to think as the darklighter gave him a stern stare, then began to morph into the curvy shape of a woman, with raven hair and striking blue eyes. His voice remained deep and masculine as he spoke to his cowardly shadow. "Don't try to make out what I'm thinking, shadow. You'll only give yourself a nonexistent migraine. Just do as I tell you and all will be well. The sisters will surely seek out the advice of their deceased sister, and I will be there when they do." He grinned at his cowering semblance, and blinked back to the surface._

***

          Leo orbed into the Manor late that night, trying to be as quiet as possible in case Piper was asleep. He stood in the hallway outside his daughter's room, listening for voices. When he heard none, he pushed the door open slowly and peered in. 

          Piper was laying with her arms around Melinda, on her side so she could be more comfortable. Leo could have sworn that Mel was only sleeping, that she would wake up if he stepped on the third floorboard under her rug like she always did when she was younger and he checked on her late at night. But as he took a step forward and let the wood creak beneath his weight, neither one of the women roused, both of them breathing heavily as they slept. He forced himself over to the bed to wake Piper, unsure of whether he should tell her what the Elders had told him. The news might be too much for her to handle at this point, especially if-

          "Leo, you're back," Piper interrupted his thoughts, blinking up at him with heavy lids. "What did you find out? Is there anything we can do?"

          he gulped back the acid that was rising in his throat. _She'll never forgive me if I tell her what I know, but at the same time she'll never forgive me if I don't. So why is this so hard? Just tell her and get it over with. "They… They said th-that she… was raped by a darklighter."_

          Piper eyes filled with confusion for a moment, trying to process the bits of information that were compiled in her head. Blinking rapidly, she questioned him. "So, her rapist was definitely from other side, not just a punk kid? And so why is she unconscious, Leo? If this was demonically related, then why can't you heal her? I thought only a darklighter's arrows can kill a whitelighter, even a half whitelighter."

          "The poison on the arrows is taken from a darklighter's blood," he said softly, hoping that he wouldn't upset her even more. "They all develop it in their systems as they go through the training to become a darklighter. So, if the poison from the arrows is taking from the darklighter's body, then-" 

          "Then the poison can be taken from their bodies by other means as well," Piper's lip quivered as she put two and two together. "Oh, God. Leo, is she…?"

          He shook his head. "I don't know. I never thought to check before. But I can if you want me to." He watched her nod half-heartedly and get up off the bed. She trembled slightly as her husband stepped forward and placed his hands over his daughter's abdomen. He plunged his mind inside her, sensing for a life that was not meant to be there. Deep within the confines of her body, sheltered in a home of flesh and bone, he saw a tiny heart, beating rapidly against the side of her weakened uterus. Leo felt himself draw back sharply, and he opened his eyes back in the bedroom. He gasped as the image of the embryo that grew inside his daughter hung in his mind. 

          The heart was black.


	5. 5

          Leo paced the hall while Piper sobbed in Melinda's room. He tried to concentrate on saving his daughter, but all his thoughts kept drifting back to the fetus that she carried inside her. _My daughter is pregnant, but she'll never live to see the baby born. It will slowly eat away at her, absorbing all of the life she has left in her, killing her every moment that it lives. He heard pounding on the stairs as Paige and Phoebe ran down from the attic. They both stopped suddenly when they saw Leo, and the deep circles that were etched under his eyes. _

          "Leo, what…?" Paige stammered, afraid to finish her question, in case Melinda had died while she was doing her research.

          "She's pregnant," he whispered into his chest. "That bastard got her pregnant, and it's killing her inside. I can't heal something that doesn't need to be healed, and healing Mel means killing the baby, which means I'd be killing an innocent. So you can see where our problem lies, can't you?"

          The desperation in his voice was showing through, and it caught Phoebe off guard. "What do you mean, it's killing her?"

          "Just what I said. The darklighter raped my daughter, and now she's dying from carrying his child because she's half whitelighter." He heaved a heavy sigh and leaned against the wall. Closing his eyes, he let himself slide slowly to the ground, where he put his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. "I've never felt so helpless, even when I was in the war, surrounded by soldiers who were dying. I heard them crying out to me, 'Leo, please! Help me!' It hurt so much to know that I couldn't do anything for them. And now look at me. Sixty years later, I feel just as helpless knowing that my daughter is dying right in front of me and I can't do a thing to stop it. God, I almost wish that They had never offered to give me immortality. Then I wouldn't have to suffer through this all over again. But then… then I would never have met Piper. She makes the pain worth it. Her and Mel. They're my life, Phoebe. I can't lose either of them." 

          Paige and Phoebe knelt down next to their brother in law, Paige wrapping her arms around his shoulders while Phoebe patted his knee reassuringly. "I promise we'll fix this," she said while she patted. "I promise that you won't lose them, and that Mel will be just fine by the time we're through. Just give us the time and we'll fix everything."

          Leo nodded and wiped away the tears that had slipped down his cheek without permission. Phoebe grabbed her sister's arm and pulled her into Melinda's bedroom, thinking of how they could sway Piper as easily as they had Leo. She watched as her sister rocked back and forth on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. Phoebe rushed over to her, followed closely by Paige, who enveloped her in a monstrous hug. "Shhh… it'll be all right, sweetie. I promise. But right now, you can't do anything to help her by falling apart. So come with us, and we'll call mom, or Grams, to see if they can help us. Or how about Prue. You want to see Prue again right? Honey, please, pull yourself together long enough to save your daughter."

          Piper's cries diminished into small hiccups, but she refused to look up at either of her sisters. She swiped a hand quickly across her face, mopping up the saline tears that had formed thin red streams down her cheeks. "For Mel. I'll do it for Mel." She stood, avoiding eye contact, and walked slowly toward the door. She glanced only once over her shoulder at Melinda, who still lay motionless under her dark blue comforter. Assured that she was going nowhere, Piper continued out into the hall, visibly flinching as she noticed Leo crouched on the floor. Instead of stopping to console her despondent husband, she passed by him and up the attic stairs, where she herself collapsed into a heap. Paige caught her at the elbow and dragged her to her feet.

          "Come on, honey, we're almost there. Just a few more steps and you can bawl as much as you want. We just need to get the spell over with." She linked her arm into Piper's and led her slowly up the stairs. Once at the top, Paige let her older sister fall onto the chair just inside the door and curl up into a fetal position. 

          "Can we hurry up and do this so I can have my life back?" Piper pleaded, squeezing her hands together so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. "I just want my daughter back."

          Phoebe nodded and began setting up the candles, lighting them one by one with her mind. Over the years, her powers had grown and developed, and the power to spark electricity with her mind that was supposed to have gotten her in trouble in the future had in fact kept her from making the biggest mistake of her life.

          So with the candles lighted, she stood back and brought the Book of Shadows over to the chair. She handed it to Piper, who flipped to the proper page and began the chant.

_Hear these words, hear my cry_

_Spirit from the other side_

_Come to me, I summon thee_

_Cross mow the great divide._

***

          The darklighter sat in silence, waiting on a plane parallel to that of the Halliwells. He had been listening patiently for the spell that would summon the fourth Charmed One, and had anticipated the move to its entirety. On the parallel plane, he had set up a receiving device of sorts, using his mind to intercept any call that was made from Halliwell Manor, supernatural or not. And once they began that silly spell, he had his chance to move. 

          Despite having been imprisoned for nearly a century, it hadn't taken him long to gather all the information he needed on the exalted Charmed Ones. They were almost as well known on the other side as the near-Source, Belthazor, and his predecessor. Every demon, warlock, banshee, and necromancer in the underworld wanted them dead for some reason or another. It was just his luck that his latest fling had been the powerless daughter of the eldest. _A sheer stroke of pure luck, he thought as the female body he had transformed into shifted in place. His patience growing thin, he pulled at the hem of the white silk gown and grimaced. __How can anyone wear this? It's sticking to my legs. _

          Suddenly, like a flash of lightening in his mind, the words began ringing in his head. He suppressed them back into the Manor with a quick twitch of his eyelid, leaving nothing to stop him from simply taking the dead sister's place in the little circle of candles he knew they had set up to await her arrival. He smiled slyly to himself as he blinked away, reappearing in a blaze of light in the attic of the home of the Charmed Ones.

***

          "Prue! Oh my God, we've missed you!" 

          Phoebe rushed past the burning candles on the floor and embraced her sister tightly. She tensed for a moment, as though she was unsure of what to do, then loosened and returned her younger sister's affection. She coughed lightly into her hand and smiled. "Yeah, you too."

          "This has been such a nightmare! You know why we called you right?" Phoebe grasped her firmly by the shoulders and looked into her sister's eyes. There was something missing from them, something that Prue had always had when she was alive. Phoebe dismissed it as a flaw of death and passed her on to Piper, who hugged her tightly for a few long moments.

          "Of course I know what's going on," Prue said, patting Piper's back in a maternal gesture of sorts. "I'll do anything I can to help, but I'm not sure of what use I could be to you. I'll stay if you want me to, just to give you guys support. There isn't much I can do other than that."

          Piper squeezed her a final time, and let her go to hug their final sister. She wasted no time on small chat with Paige, and started down the stairs after a quick embrace. The three living sisters followed, uncertain of what exactly what Prue was doing. Once they got to the bottom of the stairs, the eldest looked down the hall in either direction, before heading toward a room to the left.

          "Uh, Prue? Mel's room is this way. You were here when we moved it remember? Just after she was born?" Paige furrowed her brows together, wondering how Prue could have forgotten such and important event. Like Phoebe, she dismissed it as another shortcoming of death and the afterlife, and led her to the room where her niece had lain for nearly two days.

          No one saw the scowl that passed briefly over Prue's face, and so she humphed lightly to herself, correcting her error. "Oh, yeah. I was just, uh, going downstairs. I thought that she might have been, um, down there. Ya know?"

          Piper wasn't the only one who picked up the change in Prue's voice, the sudden difference in pitch and the shaky language. She was, however, the only one who noticed her second mistake. _The stairs to the first floor aren't down that hall either, she thought.__ They're on the other side of Mel's room… _

          She didn't have time to protest the small slip-up, since the party had arrived outside Melinda's room. Prue pushed open the heavy mahogany door, and entered slowly. She glanced around, like she was afraid that something would jump out at her, before cautiously making her way over to the bed. She sat down and took Melinda's hand in hers, and felt the energy flowing through her.  She smiled slyly, knowing that she had won the battle, but the war was not yet over. 

          "We were hoping you could help us find a way to get rid of the baby without having to kill it," Piper whispered from the doorway. "Since we it's technically and innocent and all."

"And why would I want to that, sister dear?" Prue said in a deep voice that shocked the other women. "Why would I want to get rid of my own child? It just doesn't seem like the thing that I would do." Prue's face dissolved before their eyes, replaced with that of a young man, both handsome and hideous in his own right. His amazing blue eyes flashed to black, bringing out the deep scar under his eye. He grinned at them smugly before latching onto Melinda's wrist. "Bye now," he hissed, and blinked from the room. 


	6. 6

She could hear voices, cries of anguish and the savage hiss of a single word in her ear: patience. She had no idea what it meant, or how the word had appeared in her mind. She had spent days in darkness, shrouded by an excruciating pain in her abdomen that seemed to grow more intense with each passing moment. It was unavoidable, uncontrollable, and irreversible. She could still feel the weight of his bulk on top of hers, the throb in between her thighs as he intruded on her body and penetrated the only thing she had ever kept for herself. But the moment the trespass was complete, it was as though someone had come and ripped her consciousness out from inside of her, throwing her soul into a whirlpool of visions and gloom. It had trapped her inside herself for hours upon hours, days upon days, like a prisoner in a cell that was too small to hold a living being. And yet she could hear, if only a little, what was going on around her. The shouts, the cries, arguments and reconciliations over her hapless form. Her parents were constantly there, huddled over her as though she were dead, or dying. But how could she be dying if she could see all that was going on? How could they think that she would give up on them without a fight? All she wanted to do was cry out to them, to take her mother's hand and squeeze it tightly, to show them that all was not lost. Her limbs had failed her, unresponsive when she tried to move. She was immobile and paralyzed, unable to protest the voice in her ear, or the sudden sucking feeling that pulled at her brain as her room disappeared around her, swallowing her up in a black hole of nothingness.

They had landed abruptly in a shadowed room, the smell of mold stinging her nostrils as she took in a deep breath. The pain was more agonizing than ever, ripping her organs apart with dull razors and hacking at her defenseless body with what seemed like a thousand tiny pitchforks. The silhouetted form that hovered over her grinned and placed her on the cold concrete floor. Her assailant strode away, his footsteps echoing in her ears. She could hear cars outside the walls of her prison, shouts from passers-by on the street above her head. With all the strength she could muster, all the last amounts of energy that passed through her body, she forced a new single word past her lips.

"Mommy!"

  
  


***

  
  


Piper glanced up from her frantic searching, hearing a cry in her mind. God, I must be going insane. I'm even starting to hear her voice in my head. "Did you hear that Leo?" 

Leo looked up from his intent study of the floorboards. "Huh?"

"That cry, did you hear it? I could have sworn I heard someone yell, 'Mommy'." Piper stayed her hand at a page on darklighters, but refused to look at the picture. She would have had Phoebe or Paige looking for her, but they had come to the consensus that Piper and Leo needed some alone time. Piper could hear them banging up her good pots in the kitchen.

"I didn't hear anything," Leo buried his nose back in the grainy wood below his feet.

"Are you sure?" she pushed him again, praying that she wasn't going crazy. Although her sisters would say that it was understandable, crazy was not an emotion to get wrapped up in at that moment. She tapped her fingers on the page as Leo sighed heavily and looked up at her. 

"I told you, I didn't hear a goddamned thing. Face it Piper, we're never going to see our daughter alive again. Even if we do, by some miracle, she'll die after the child is born, after that infected life grows inside her and takes what it needs from her and then lets her rot. It's over, Piper. He's won. Just let it go."

"Let it go? Let it go?" she slammed the book shut on her fingers but barely noticed as she tramped over to her husband. "How could you say that? How could you just give up on our daughter like that? Give up on me and us and everything we've ever built! I don't believe you!" 

Leo threw himself out of the chair, knocking it over with his speed. "You don't believe me? Look at yourself, Piper! You're knocking yourself out over all of this when you know that it's a lost cause! She's gone and we're never going to see her again. Get it through your head!"

Before he had a chance to turn away from her, she struck out at him, slapping him hard across his face. "How dare you! How dare you think that Mel will just give up, that I will just give up when I know that my baby is out there, alive, and waiting for me to come and get her. If you had one ounce of compassion for your own family, you'd see that, but if you loved us, you'd be out there trying to find her with me."

"I've not given up on you or her, Piper," Leo's shoulders slumped, "and you know that. I've given up on the idea of ever being able to laugh with her again, or to see her eyes, or her smile… I've given up on thinking that I will ever be able to have her hug me, or give me a kiss goodnight or ask to borrow the car. It doesn't matter that she's alive out there, Piper, it matters that she'll never wake up and that she'll be dead in nine months. So I've given up. Can you understand that?"

Piper shook her head, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. "No, Leo, I can't understand that. She's your daughter! You have to at least try, if not for me then for her! Jesus, Leo! You should be ashamed to call yourself a father!"

Leo's jaw dropped slightly as he faltered at her harsh words. He took a step backwards, unsure of whether he should shout back or apologize. Instead, he closed his eyes and orbed away. Piper heaved and went back to the book. 

"God, I don't need this from you right now," she whispered. "This is too much." Taking three deep breaths, she let each one out slowly, clearing her mind and focusing her thoughts. "I know I heard something, whether I was imagining it or not. I just have to figure out where it's coming from."

  
  


***

  
  


The cold air blew in from the barred window, sending a gust up her ripped shirt that chilled her immobile body. The darkness beneath her lids annoyed her, and the paralysis that controlled her was making her frantic. She could hear him wandering around the cool concrete room, his feet stepping heavily on the cracking cement. Every once in a while he would pause and sigh, like he had lost his train of thought and was struggling to get back on it. Sometimes he would say something, but she could never fully understand the context of his statement. He was never actually talking to her, it was more like he was talking above her or around her. As though there was someone else in the room with them that she couldn't sense. Only when he leaned down close to her ear could she hear what he was saying.

"Patience, my love," he hissed. "Your heaven will soon be mine as well. Until we can decide where the transformation shall take place, this will make a cozy abode. Patience, my love, patience."


	7. 7

Piper spent the remainder of her day scouring the book for any answers that it might provide, and worrying over Leo. It wasn't like him to just storm off like that, without a word as to where he was going or when he would be back. She heaved a sigh and slammed the heavy object shut, turning to her sisters who were huddled in the corner, writing several spells. 

"Why can't I find anything?" she whined, running a sweaty palm through her hair. "He's just a darklighter, there has to be something more than a description of them in here! He seemed to know everything about us, and we fell for it! Damn it, I just want my daughter back!"

Phoebe lifted herself to her feet, using Paige's shoulder as a steady. "Oh, honey. We want to get her back, too. It just might take a little time. Don't worry. We have nine months to work all this out."

"No, we don't have nine months. By then it'll be too late. She'll be too far gone for us to save. " Piper threw her hands in the air, fighting off the urge to pitch herself out the stained glass window. Leo had been gone for hours, disappearing in a blaze of blue light that had been much brighter than usual, which meant he'd left in a huff. Piper had hoped that he would've been back to help them, but as darkness fell for the third time since Mel had left for her date, he was no where to be found.

"Honey, don't worry. We'll find her. Why don't you try calling Leo again, hm? I'm sure he can't still be mad at you." Paige remained on the floor, but gave Piper's ankle a comforting squeeze.

"If I were him I'd be mad at me, too," she whispered as she wandered down the stairs alone. She hovered at the bottom, trying to decide whether or not she wanted another confrontation with her husband that night. Looking left, then right, she settled on her bedroom as a neutral territory for an engagement with the enemy. Once she was inside, she shut the door behind her and pressed her back against it, shutting her eyes for a moment so she could concentrate. 

Opening them up again, she was taken by surprise to see a pair of black eyes staring deep into her own, not two feet in front of her. Before she had a chance to scream or blow the darklighter up, he snapped his hand up to her face and covered mouth with his palm. "Try something and you'll never find your daughter," he hissed into her ear as he eased his fingers up the front of her shirt.

Piper squirmed under his hands, her mind frantic against the feelings that were washing over her body. Leo! Leo, I need you! followed closely by No one had ever touched me like this before. She mentally slapped herself and struggled against his hold, a bead of sweat dripping from her temple. 

"You'll do as I say or your daughter will die," he whispered as he reached around behind Piper and undid the clasp of her bra. "Don't say a word, don't move a muscle, don't even breathe… your daughter wasn't nearly as submissive as you are. Hm, but then again she had nothing to lose…"

Piper gnashed at his hand, sinking her teeth into the soft flesh on his fingers. He hissed in pain, and pulled his hand away, smacking her hard across the face with his other hand. "You'll pay for that, bitch." He advanced on her again, and was surprised when she didn't attempt to blow him into a million tiny pieces. Despite this, he pressed her up against the door, his fingers wrapped tightly around her throat. "I don't know whether you're very stupid, or smart enough to get yourself killed." He smashed his lips down on hers, flicking his rancid tongue in and out of her mouth like a snake searching for it's next meal. Before he pulled away, he pressed a slip of paper into her hand, forcing her fist closed around it. He pulled away, wiping his mouth, smiled at her, then blinked away.

  
  


***

  
  


"The scene is set, my dear," he whispered into her ear. "Your mother will follow my directions to the letter if she ever wants to see you alive again… you may not remember who she is but what does that matter to me? You'll be my bride, and together we'll rule the underworld with our child. Our son…" the darklighter stroked her stomach, sending a shadow over Melinda's abdomen. On cue, her shirt stretched beneath his hand, expanding in seconds as he sped up the process which usually took nine long months. "I was never a patient man, even when I was human. This will speed things up a bit." He lifted his victim off the damp floor, carrying her over to the bed of moss. Laying her down with loving tenderness, he sat next to her and told her his story…

"I know you can hear me, so I'm going to tell you this…I wasn't always evil. I was a once a human, once a man of flesh and bone like you. But my head grew faster than my heart, and I became ruthless. I only cared for what I desired, and no one else. It was that fact that put me on the list to become a darklighter. My hatred for all the opposed me just got me further toward my goal, and in the end, I was killed by the ones who meant the most to me: my family. My wife held me down while my daughter… while my own flesh stabbed me in the heart. I'm sure it was hurting them more than it hurt me. Oh, of course, they never wanted to kill me, but what could they have done? Allow me to go about ruining their lives? Pft." He scoffed, his sarcasm dripping from his eyeteeth. "The Source approached me personally, asking me to be one of his henchmen, so to speak. I agreed, since it would give me the chance to seek my revenge. Unfortunately, it was too late for me to do anything by the time I had enough power to do it. Someone had taken care of my family: you. You and your line took away my reason for existence, and now you'll pay. I've spent the last three hundred years searching for the ones who killed my wife and child before I had the chance to, and now I've found you. It wasn't as though I knew who you were at the time of our interlude, but I think that with the powers of a darklighter and a whitelighter mixed with those of a witch, I can handle to raise our with you at my side. The only thing to be done is to get rid of your parents…" 

  
  


***

  
  


Piper was weeping into her hands as Leo orbed into their bedroom minutes after the darklighter had blinked away. He didn't seem in the least bit concerned as his wife huddled on the ground at his feet, trembling in shock as a trickle of blood crept down her chin. 

"Are you alright?" he asked in the most monotone voice he could muster without sounding cold. "I heard you calling."

"Damn right, you heard me calling!" she shouted back at him, avoiding his lifeless gaze down at her. "…Leo, he came here. He came and he gave me this." She threw the wrinkled paper at him, burying her head once again in her hands.

Leo took the paper from her, running his fingers over it once before opening it to find a meticulously scrawled list of instructions:

  
  


1.If you wish to see your daughter again, you'll do as I say. I am the only one who knows how to prevent her death, and you are the only ones who can make the preparations. Just make sure there is nothing out of place when I come with her and I'll think about letting her live long enough to see our child's first breath.

2.Here are the ingredients for the potion to save your daughter…

  
  


He folded the paper in his hands, fondling the filthy scrap gently, his fingertips tracing the lettering of the business that was advertised on one side. He paused and tried to make out the name. Purple Monkey's Bar and Grille. He drew a quick breath, his knees giving way beneath him. I've found her… "Piper… Piper look at this…" He thrust the sheet under her nose and waved it, all his enmities lost in the heat of a precious moment. "Where is the only place in San Francisco that you can get an Orange Orangutan Burger?"

Piper glanced up, confused. "Purple Monkey's Bar, but what does that have to do wi-" She stopped as she took the paper and read the fading script, her eyes widening as she realized what she was holding. "God, how did I miss this? How did he miss this?"

"I don't know, but this is our chance! He's given us the opportunity to save Mel!" he hesitated a second as he helped her to her feet, realizing what an ass he had been. "Piper, I… I'm sorry that I doubted you. I know that I haven't been the best of husbands in the past few hours, but give me another chance. Please? For Mel?" Leo gripped her hands firmly, praying that she would give him the answer he was hoping for.

Piper shook her head, her knuckles whitening as she clenched the paper in one hand and his sleeve in the other. She felt uncomfortable in his grasp, like his touch was alien to her. She tried to shake off her unpleasant feeling, her judgement clouded from the assault in her room. Instead, she focused on the question at hand. Am I willing to risk my daughter's life on a fickle man who walks out in a crisis? "I don't know, Leo. I need some time to think… I need time to figure out what you were thinking, and what I was thinking. Can you give me that?"

Leo nodded and stepped away, visibly disappointed but not rejected. "Yeah, take as much time as you need. Until then, though, can we work on saving our daughter?" He let, 'our daughter' hang in the air as an incentive to hurry along her thought process, but his intent received an opposite effect. Piper tore off out the door, screaming for her sisters as she dashed down the hall. Leo sighed and admitted a temporary defeat, then followed his estranged wife up to the attic, where Phoebe and Paige were already throwing questions at Piper.

"He came here?"

"What did he say?"

"What did he look like up close?"

Leo entered as Piper began to slow her frantic sisters down. "Guys, calm down. This is the one chance we've got, so we have to do it right. The instructions say we have to make a potion, somehow get Mel to drink said potion, and then say the spell. This all, however, has to be done as she's giving birth, since the darklighter dude wants to keep his baby. I say we get the bastard to come here, vanquish his sorry ass and pray that the baby isn't evil, okay?"

Paige frowned. "Piper, she's a long way from giving birth. Things change in nine months, things beyond our control. What if this darklighter can't be vanquished? He's obviously different from all the others. He's too smart to let a little thing like a slip of paper spoil his perfect plan. Besides, what if the baby isn't worth saving? It's a half darklighter, and-"

"And it's part witch and part whitelighter, too!" Piper screamed, her face flaring to match the red shirt she had been wearing for the past three days. "And it's part of Mel. If this spell doesn't work, and the child lives, I'll still have part of her with me. At least I'll have the baby…" she trailed off, a single tear dripping down her face. She sunk to the floor as her legs gave way beneath her and she began to understand what her daughter was feeling the night that he… "God… he was right there… all I had to do was blow him up, and I didn't because I was afraid of never finding Mel. Even when… even when he held me against the wall, when kissed me… I could feel what was going on all around me, and- and I knew what Mel felt that night. Jesus, she must've been so afraid!" 

Leo hesitated to wrap his arms around her as she sobbed alone on the floor. He still wasn't sure if she had any trust in him yet. Thrusting aside his thoughts, he knelt down next to his wife and hugged her closely, letting her smash her fist roughly against his chest. "Why didn't you tell me he touched you?"

"Why can't you sense her?!" she retorted, her nails digging into his shoulder. "Why can't you just go to where she is and get her and bring her home?!" 

Her husband clutched her tighter against his chest. "I'm sorry, Piper. God, if I'm anything right now I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do for her, or for you, and it's killing me. Jesus, I wish there was something I could've done." Leo felt Piper relax in his arms, collapsing into a heap in his lap. He was torn between relief and confusion as she wrapped her arms around his waist and wept into his abdomen. "Piper, I-"

"Just help us get her back, Leo. I can't ask any more of you then that. Help us find her, and vanquish that son of a bitch, and all this will be over. We can just be 'us' again." Piper looked deeply into his eyes, and Leo knew that he had to do this, despite the fear that was building in the pit of his stomach. "Please do this for me, Leo. I know you're scared. I am too. Please, just show us what to do. For Mel."

Leo's throat tightened as Piper whispered those two words that made his decision final. "Whatever it takes, Piper, I'll be there."


	8. 8

"The potion is a little more complicated than we thought," Paige said with dismay, as she sifted through the cupboards in the kitchen. "We need billings root, I can't find any anywhere."

Piper smiled as she remembered the last time a spell had required billings root. "It's on the bottom shelf, next to the wormwood. It's labeled 'ginger'."

"Jenna taught us that," Phoebe put in with a grin as she continued to stir the already bubbling substance in the pot on the stove. It smelled like old gym socks, but as the ginger was added, a sweet aroma permeated the area. "Mmm… Mel will definitely wake up for this stuff. It smells delicious. I might have a taste myself…" 

Piper smacked her hand as she reached for spoon. "Unless you're pregnant with a darklighter's baby, I wouldn't try it. Besides, we need all the potion we can get. One dose might not do it. Leo!" 

The whitelighter orbed into the room a second later, his hair sopping wet and his signature flannel shirt unbuttoned, revealing his bare chest. "What can I do for you?" He asked sincerely as he slipped the bottom button through the wrong eyelet. 

Piper grinned at him for the first time since their argument and pointed at the grandfather clock. "Do you think that you could move that? I don't want to have to have it fixed again if this darklighter gets violent." She laughed as Leo balked at the idea of lugging the heavy antique around. "I'm kidding! God, I just wanted to make sure that you stay out of the way when this guy comes around. You're still a whitelighter, and we don't know if he'll bring his crossbow or not. Until then, help Paige write a vanquishing spell. She needs all the help she can get."

"Hey!" Paige whined, giving her older sister a playful punch in the arm. "My spells aren't that bad!"

"The last time we let you write a spell, you came up with a haiku," Phoebe shot from by the oven. "Your spell-writing skills aren't exactly Robert Frost quality."

Paige sighed and followed Leo out of the room, huffing loudly to let her sisters know that she was upset. "Fine, I'll just go out here… with boring old Leo… maybe I can help liven him up a bit…"

"Hey, stay away from my husband! You've got your own!" Piper called after her, but Paige wasn't listening. "Oh, speaking of husbands, maybe you should call yours. You haven't spoken to him in what, two days?"

Phoebe smiled at her and patted her on the shoulder. "I'm not going to do anything until we have Mel home safely. Cole and the kids will be alright on their own for a little while. Besides, it's good practice in case something ever happens to me, heaven forbid."

Piper nodded, and went back to sorting out the long list of ingredients for the potion, finding that they were only missing a couple. "Well, after Paige and Leo write that spell, they can orb down to Chinatown and pick these up while we make sure nothing happens here. It'll be faster that way."

"Why don't you write the spell and send Leo or Paige to get the herbs now? That'll save even more time, and then we can concentrate on how we're gonna get this guy without hurting Mel in the process." 

The oldest sister thought for a moment and then agreed, giving in to the idea of having some time to herself do she could think things through. She wandered out into the hall, calling for Leo and Paige as she headed for the living room. Once Paige had been relieved of her spell-writing duties, she and Leo orbed out of the manor, both discussing the proper place to pop up in Chinatown without being spotted. 

Piper took a seat on the old couch, sighing as it sunk low to the ground beneath her weight. She looked down at the pen and paper that were splayed on the coffee table, reading what her sister had come up with in the five minutes that she had been in the room with Leo. 

_"Being of destruction we ca…" _It trailed off, probably from when Piper had burst into the room and kicked them out of the house. She picked up the black ballpoint and crossed out "we ca", scribbling it until it was no longer visible. She chewed on the pen cap for a second, trying to think of a spell that wouldn't make this darklighter explode all over the place, since that was exactly what she wanted to happen to him. She let the pen dangle from the corner of her mouth before removing it and writing the lines of her spell.

__

Being if destruction

Creature of the night

You've taken that which is not yours

So we vanquish you from our sight

(PS. I hope it hurts, you bastard)

Piper grinned at her line then scratched it out, fearing the consequences of writing a spell for her own pleasure. Although, she had to admit that whatever the repercussion might be, it would be worth it to see that raping bastard writhing on the floor being attacked by swarms of hornets or being eaten by a rabid bear or something of equal terror. 

With the poorly written spell in hand, she got up and walked back to the kitchen, wrinkling her nose as she smelled the fumes from the potion hit her like a freight train. "What happened? A few minutes ago it smelled like a Thanksgiving feast and now it's back to a high school locker room. Did you add a wrong ingredient?"

Phoebe frowned and threw her oven mitt onto the counter. "No," she whined. "I did just like you said, I followed the ingredients you told me to add, and now the potion is a simmering pot of molding cheese. Grrr…"

Piper raised her eyebrow and walked over to the stove, plugging her nose as she looked into the pot. "I'll pretend that you didn't just growl and try to fix this mess. Go and double check the book, to make sure we've got what we need. It said that you needed angelica, right?"

Phoebe nodded as she flipped through the pages of the ancient book. "Yeah, that was the last thing I added before everything went sour. I thought that angelica was used to flavor fish…" She paused as she ran her finger over the worn sheet of paper and read everything over for the fortieth time. "Damn it! The angelica was supposed to be added after I let the rest of the ingredients simmer for a while. Now we have to start all over…"

"That's alright," Piper said as she patted her sister lightly on the shoulder. "Mel's not going anywhere. We'll be okay."

Piper dumped the foul smelling concoction down the drain, listening to it sputter as it hit the cool metal in the sink. "At least I hope we'll be okay."

***

"Why are you doing this?"

The darklighter looked up from his thorny vine, hearing the voice behind him. He turned and recognized the face he had been dreading for over a century. "You."

"Yes, me," the sultry female voice came from behind the shadows. She stepped into view and he gasped, finding that his remembrance of her beauty couldn't hold a candle to what she actually was. "I'll ask you one last time, Trenton. Why are you doing this?"

The darklighter, gulping at the sound of his name, stood and confronted the Siren who had stolen his heart. "Vengeance, love. What other reason would I have?"

The siren scoffed. "No amount of vengeance is worth the trouble of remedying a whitelighter who has been poisoned. The risk outweighs the purpose every time. There's something more to this. I can smell it."

"You and your scents. Listen to me, Jistua, and listen well. I have my reasons for going after the Halliwell line, and many of them are not what you might call 'kosher', but all are _well_ worth the risk. She thinks one thing," he began to whisper, pointing at the body of his victim lying on the moss, "and I think another. It's as simple as that."

"What could you possibly tell an unconscious child, Trenton? For the Source's sake, she's just a baby!"

Trenton smiled darkly. "A siren with a conscience. How rare a find. And I have the only one. But for the Source's sake would be a correct assessment, Jistua. With the child of a Charmed One as my queen, and a child tucked safely away in her belly, the throne will be mine. No one would dare to challenge a Charmed One."

"But she's not a Charmed One," Jistua replied coolly. "She's a teenager, who happened to be the daughter of a Charmed One and a whitelighter, who also happened to be your latest victim on your superiority spree. Don't even bother trying to tell me that you would be making such a fuss otherwise."

Trenton scowled at his lover and threw away the vine he had been sucking the water from. "Just because you have a soul doesn't mean you can flaunt it around like a new pet poodle," he huffed, crossing his arms like a stubborn child. "I may be a lowly darklighter, but my power is still stronger than yours. It's only been two decades since my release from the former Source's prison, but I have been fine-tuning my abilities, and I assure you that they are more than one might expect…"

"I don't doubt your power, Trenton. I doubt your ability to carry out your 'master plan' without a faction. No one will follow a washed up darklighter who just happened to have raped a Charmed daughter. Think before you act, dear. It would save us so much more time. Now the only thing you've got is a pregnant little girl and her pissed off witch relatives. I'd be careful if I were you." Jistua turned away from the darklighter, feeling his eyes boring into her back. She didn't turn around to meet his terrible gaze. "Watch your back, Trenton. You never know who will betray you." She disappeared into the shadows, melting in with the night.

Trenton ground his teeth and seethed at the audacity of the beleaguering siren. She was always right, and she knew it, and it bothered him to no end that she could find a way to prove him wrong. She was correct, however. He had backed himself into a corner with a thick paint of bluffs and lies. What was there left to do except… defeat the Charmed Ones?

***

"Finally it's done!" Phoebe carried the boiling substance over to the counter and let it cool. Before her eyes, it turned from a bright shade of pink to a deep blue, telling her that she had finally gotten the recipe right. "I only need those last two herbs… Piper! Paige! Come here, I finished it!"

Piper came in from the living room, and was followed by Paige as she nearly fell down the banister after she and Leo orbed in onto the stairs. Paige looked at the thick liquid and inhaled deeply, smelling the sweet aroma of success. "This ought to do it."

"I certainly hope so…" Piper trailed off. "What if this doesn't work? I mean, what if this is all one giant game of cat and mouse, and now this feline's dangling us upside-down by the tail over his open mouth? This could all be a trap and we just walked right into it."

Paige sighed and dumped a tablespoon of each of the powdered herbs that she and Leo had picked up into the mix. It flamed once, sending a wave of heat and smoke throughout the kitchen for a brief moment. The sisters gasped in unison while Leo shielded his wife from what seemed like an imminent explosion.

"God, Paige, be a little more careful next time," he hissed as the flames died away and once again the potion was placid. "You're likely to get someone killed."

The youngest sister rolled her eyes and tipped the potion pot onto one side, allowing the thick liquid to drain into a small glass vial. "The only thing this potion would be likely to vanquish is your grandkid… Oops." She grimaced as Leo's face paled with her negligent words, and she desperately wished that she hadn't said them. "God, I'm sorry. I'm such a bitch sometimes. I don't think before I-"

Leo held up his hand, dismissing her error with a wave. He glanced up at the ceiling, his universal signal to let the family know that he was being summoned. "He's on his way…" he whispered, drawing Piper closer to his chest. "The darklighter is on his way here."

A/N: so sorry it took so long to post this. I've had a lot on my plate lately, and I kind of felt more obligated to finished 'Tis a Shame, since I was nominated for best Phoebe fic and best unfinished fic in the Halliwell Haven awards for that fic. Anyways, r/r and tell me what you think. I really didn't want it to end being this long, but I guess that's the way it goes. Thanks.

*Dimples*


End file.
